“Kamui was absolutely amazing. The lap times which he put in while he was in third were stunning,” said Sauber after the race.
The first great tactical move from BMW Sauber Ferrari was to keep Kobayashi on the track after the first round of pit stops, which lifted him all the way to 3rd overall. From that point on, the Japanese driver not only managed to keep McLaren's Jenson Button away in 4th place, but did so while protecting his tires until the last 3 laps of the race.
After finally making his pit stop, Kobayashi made perfect use of his fresh tires and proceeded to a last-minute surge over Ferrari's Fernando Alonso, which he overtook in a single lap. Then, in the very last corner of the race, the Japanese driver got on the inside of Sebastien Buemi's STR and protected his line out of the corner for a great 7th place at the finish line.
“Signing a rookie is always something of a risk; on Sunday Kamui delivered confirmation that we made the right decision,” added Sauber on Wednesday.
In a recent interview with Autosport, Kobayashi admitted that he was driving in the last laps of the European Grand Prix as if there was no tomorrow, trying to overtake as many drivers as possible. At one point, he lost track of the remaining laps. “Then suddenly I understood, when I saw lots of guys waving at me, that that was the end of the race,” added the Japanese driver, who now sits in 13th place in the overall drivers' classification.
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